any answers...

a great woman once asked - what is it that makes community break down and fail individuals....?- and then invited discussion.

i found myself with a wry grin on my face..only of the slight variety, as i thought back over the years of church-as-family..the crying and the eating and the babysitting and the hilltops and the movie-watching and bible-reading and tea-making and going-out-dancing and the frankly just getting on with things

and i thought, i wouldn't change it for the world....sure, there's more - more sharing, more truth-telling, more babies on the way, more friends to be made and more lives to be lead....
but as the poem says, -even with all its sham and drudgery and broken dreams- community really is a wonderful thing, when your heart's in it.

and when it isn't? i hear you ponder, quietly...
well dears, when it (one's heart) isn't in it, it still must be somewhere...your heart isn't capable of being nowhere.....its the wellspring, and sometimes we redirect it, as per the free will clause, and after time, find that we've allowed it to spring up in the murky caves of isolation, or in the puddle-reflected brightlights of fast-moving careers, or in the seabed of the wrong person, or in an island we never expected to call home, or in a lakeside life that is, frankly, dull..... we get to choose. and sometimes we choose to unchoose what we've chosen, but one thing that i really think is this..
more often than not, we are the cause of our being failed by community. i have "been failed" by community at, and being honest here, only at, the times when i've let my own wellspring bubble up in the grey, motionless lake of self-pity. it goes like this..i feel no-one loves me - so i don't ask for love - so when its offered i'm out of the habit of accepting it - so i forget its even available - then i get to forgetting i want it - then i forget i physically can't get by without it - then around this point god usually steps up and drags the wellspring kicking and screaming back to its preferred home at the estuary of hope, where life is open, and can go in all directions, but at all times springs from a place that allows for possibility, for mistakes and upsets, for the -oooooh, interestings- of life....

this place, for me, is in community. i love the family that god has gifted me with here, and although i sometimes neglect or belittle or misrepresent it, when i'm not doing those things, i try to hold it like a fragile glass while still washing it up, or like a small bird that wants to fly but really needs a splint putting on its leg, or like poppy hughes who wants to stand up so badly that she forgot to hold on to the sofa....it really hurt....! sorry i wasn't quick enough pops...

in a way that for me is scarily reminiscent of the tie that binds me to jesus, the ties of community are built of beautifully fragile stuff...human love...and all its pulsing and frothing and dumbing down and boxing in and forgetfulness and time spent apart...

but the tie that binds me to jesus is not this. not for his part. for his part it is built of the finest web, oaklike roots and heaven's own cable-ties. he cannot let go of me, its not an option for him. when i re-route my own wellspring, (and yes i realise i'm lighting far too many metaphor fires here to possibly be able to keep them all going..!) it is not his fault. but sometimes i blame him. other times i re-route it, i blame people around me, but it is not their fault either. yet every time, because of the years passed and meals shared and truths-owned, they forgive me and take me back. and so does he. i now have a tear or two in my eye as i consider this life that he has created for me, and i cannot thank him enough. it amazes me that i can know charis and lucy, and becca, and matt and fran, and caleb and sal and joshua and oh my goodness.....how did i ever get to here....? its because people taught me about jesus in the spring and summer of 2000, and the winters of the four following years, and in the summer of 2006....months and seasons gone, choc-a-block with learning of jesus together, and persisting in love.

i need a cup of tea now...x